In the US market the most important variable of growth has been the introduction of several new products and services beyond the typical sales of books, videos and music. This couples with the company goal of being the place where customers can search and buy anything they may want in the Internet. .
The company's international expansion has been also very important in the recent years. The first international Web Site of Amazon.com was launched simultaneously in Germany and United Kingdom in October 1998. These two Internet sites are positioned as number one sites of Internet sales in their respective countries. Recently, two new Web Sites were launched in France (August 31, 2000) and Japan (November 01, 2000). This process of international growth is expected to continue opening new Web Sites or arranging partnerships with local providers. .
The E-Commerce Accounting.
With Internet a new economy started to grow, the cyber economy or simply e-commerce. This technological revolution is changing the old paradigms about the workings of economics and furthermore our life styles. As happened in the early years of the Industrial Revolution, some firms made a protagonist role in showing the wealth and power of this "revolution". Today the history seems to return to a new starting point but we must be aware that new changes in the economic structure have important costs of reallocation and assimilation that are particularly important in the early stages where we are right now (See Figure-2). One of these firms leading the e-commerce business revolution today is Amazon.com. But what is behind this prosperous firm in the stock market? It is so productive and profitable as the tradional firms? What are the rules that are going to follow the new firms compared with the older ones? Taking a look into the financial and accounting information of this firm we will answer many of these questions.
